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Boat firesFire brigade called out to harbours three times at the weekend

Pascal Schürmann

 · 16.03.2026

Boat fires: Fire brigade called out to harbours three times at the weekendPhoto: dpa
Fire brigade in action (symbolic photo)
There were fires on ships on Friday and Saturday, once in Rostock and once in Hamburg. The fire brigade was also called out once to recover a faulty battery from a yacht.

At around 4.35 pm on Saturday, a fire broke out on a sailing yacht about 15 metres long at a jetty in Rostock-Langenort. When the Rostock fire brigade arrived, flames were already shooting out of the hull. Despite swiftly initiated extinguishing measures, it was not possible to prevent the yacht from burning out.

Another yacht in the immediate vicinity was towed out of the danger zone by the fire brigade. The extinguished boat remained afloat and was secured with oil booms as a precaution. A total of 70 firefighters from the professional fire brigade, volunteer fire brigade, rescue service, water police and the State Office for Agriculture and the Environment were involved in the operation.

Fire broke out on abandoned yacht

No details were given as to what caused the fire. The scene of the fire was to be forensically examined and an investigation initiated. The amount of damage could not yet be determined either, as the age and condition of the vessel make it difficult to estimate. The yacht has apparently been lying unused at the jetty in Langenort for several years.

About an hour after the fire broke out in Rostock, a ship also went up in flames in Hamburg. In the Moorfleet district, fire broke out on a residential boat moored on the wooden harbour shore. Welding work had been carried out on the decommissioned cutter.

Flying sparks suspected to have caused the fire

According to the police, two people on board who were trying to extinguish the fire suffered minor injuries. No details of the amount of damage have yet been released.

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There was another call-out on Friday evening at the outdoor storage area of the Hamburg marina in Wedel on the Elbe. There, an owner had noticed a technical defect in one of his on-board batteries.

As he obviously did not want to dismantle the battery and remove it from the ship himself, he quickly called the fire brigade for help. The fire brigade arrived with a turntable ladder to get the battery, which they had previously removed, off the ship, which was standing on a trestle. Apart from the faulty battery, no damage was caused.

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Pascal Schürmann

Pascal Schürmann

Editor YACHT

Pascal Schürmann joined YACHT in Hamburg in 2001. As head of copywriting and head of the editorial team, he makes sure that all articles make it into the magazine on time and that they are both informative and entertaining to read. He was born in the Bergisches Land region near Cologne. He learned how to handle the tiller and sheet as a teenager in a touring dinghy on the Sneeker Meer and on a tall ship on the IJsselmeer. During and after his studies, he sailed on the Baltic Sea and in the Mediterranean. As a trained business journalist, he is also responsible for boat financing and yacht insurance reports at YACHT, but also has a soft spot for blue water topics.

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